


lightning in her veins

by ElasticElla



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Unicorns, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8121751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: Anya's seeking something much smaller, much closer than the stars, and she needs her skin to be bathed in moonlight before they'll approach. It's a good thing Raven's fiddling with a potion tonight, she would have laughed herself silly at Anya sitting naked in the woods, certainly would have scared away any creatures.





	

The forest's air is thick and hot, the impending storm rolling closer as Anya sits in a small clearing. She can feel the damp air sink into her skin, into her hands that are raised to the old gods, veins exposed. Her lips don't move, she has no need to deal with them today, but the open wrists are an acknowledgment. Gods like that sort of thing, have egos nearly as big as their creations. 

Anya's seeking something much smaller, much closer than the stars, and she needs her skin to be bathed in moonlight before they'll approach. It's a good thing Raven's fiddling with a potion tonight, she would have laughed herself silly at Anya sitting naked in the woods, certainly would have scared away any creatures. (While Raven adapted to living in a witch's cottage far better than Anya thought a human could, she tends to treat any oddities of witchcraft as humorous rather than to be feared.) 

Anya opens her eyes when a muzzle nudges at her shoulder, far smaller than she was expecting. It's a little golden foal, its horn barely larger than her pinkie finger, and no adult unicorn in sight. Anya frowns, unicorns in particular were rather territorial of their young. She's softly petting the foal when she sees the shiny gloss of clear blood, a brief sudden anger tearing through her that someone had attacked such a young one.

"Easy there," she says, magic coming to her fingertips, "a quick healing spell and we'll wash away the blood." 

Her magic finds no wound, and the foal's eyes seem even bigger than before. 

"Come, we'll go to the stream and wash that away, I'll- I'll protect you." 

Anya can count each of the foal's ribs, tries not to think of how long it was hiding in the forest, wearing its parent's blood. While full grown unicorns needed only starlight or moonlight to subsist on, the foals needed more to grow. What exactly isn't known, but there are tales of straw spun from gold working and of clovers with too many leaves to count. Anya doesn't know what she'll try if neither work, perhaps she'll bring the foal to another forest and try to seek out a unicorn to adopt them. (Unicorns hated changing forests, but if it was a matter of starvation…) 

And what began as a passive idea to perhaps introduce Raven to a unicorn, turns into Anya bringing the foal home.

.

Raven first came into her forest quite by mistake, lured by a cruel faerie, and strung up in a tree to be found by the hungry. It's pure luck that Anya was walking her wards that evening, sliced the light net open. The girl was unconscious, and with only a few heartbeats of indecision, Anya took the human to her home.

She expects the girl to be bitterly grateful at best, outright fearful at most, dangerous at worst. 

She's curious instead, coaxing Anya's own curiosity. 

Curious though she may be, it takes Raven a week to admit a weakness, that the leg injury isn't fresh, that the splinters of metal around her fall had been a brace once. Raven turns down Anya's glowing hands at first, just asks for materials to craft with. But the forest only has wood, and Anya doesn't want her guest to leave, offers her hands again, to transform the wooden brace that's too stiff for easy walking. 

Raven huffs, giving up with an aborted wave, "Have at it." 

Silver magic swirls up her leg around the wood, turning it softer and flexible and durable. They solidify as metallic vines, and Raven tests it out once the magic's set, poking at it. It's easier to walk in she eventually says, in between a dozen questions about the transfiguration. 

Anya won't get her hopes up, but she could almost see herself being friends with the human. (Were she a seer, the kisses they'd engage in months later would have shocked her to the core, would have perhaps prompted her to bring Raven back to her people. It's another lucky thing that she doesn't carry that gift.) 

. 

When she sees the foal Raven falls to her knees, a little too hard on the magic laced one as she winces, but nothing can overcome the awestruck expression on her face. 

"Unicorns are real," she whispers, and the foal trots up to her and headbutts her. Raven falls back softly laughing, and the foal playfully follows, extending its neck and demanding to be pet. 

"Do you have a name?" Raven asks, and the little foal nickers. 

"No names," Anya says firmly. "A unicorn's name binds, and the foal should be allowed to live with its own kind." 

"But-"

"And that's not to mention the language barrier, unless you've developed telepathic abilities in the last few hours?" Anya asks pointedly, setting up her spinning wheel with a new spindle. 

"Awww, we won't let a little language barrier get in the way will we? No, no we won't," Raven coos, scratching under the foal's chin. 

"Raven," Anya starts, and Raven's playful baby voice drops, "I know, I know, back to the forest, blah, blah, blah." 

"You can always stay," Raven mock-whispers to the foal, and Anya rolls her eyes. 

In an ironic twist of fate, it's far harder to spin straw from gold than gold from straw, but Anya manages. The foal doesn't seem interested, but then Raven picks up a bit of straw and offers it, and the foal eats. 

Anya sighs and keeps spinning, at this rate they'd have a new house guest before the seasons changed. Once upon a time it would have upset her, she had always enjoyed living alone and leading her fellow witches from afar. Raven had changed that though, she would even consider moving to the mountains, to live with her coven once more. 

(But Raven's friends were by the forest, and Raven couldn't possibly live with the coven- Anya couldn't enforce rules while breaking them, while allowing a human that practiced magic into their most sacred lands. No, for now, it was the forest for them.)

.

Raven doesn't often wake up before Anya, but when she does, Anya will wake to a full breakfast platter and Raven munching on a piece of bacon. Anya's pretty sure Raven can do anything she puts her mind to- besides having worked a bundle of different jobs in town, she adapted well to magic, can sing and fix things, and all of the forest adores her. (The river carries her to town swiftly when she wants to visit Bellamy and Monty and Sinclair and Gina, turns a day trip into an hour.)

Raven swears she doesn't have any witch in her when Anya asks, coyly adding that she'd like to. And Anya feels just as enchanted as the forest must, kissing Raven over pancakes. 

.

Raven and the foal get along exceedingly well, and the foal happily munches its straw from her hands, slowly growing. It's an adolescent unicorn, its coat no longer gold but silver, when they learn his name, drawn out into the dirt: _Wrynn_. 

"Are you sure?" Raven asks before saying it, and he nuzzles her shoulder. 

"Alright Wrynn," she says with a grin, "let's make you a proper room then." 

And while the guest room had only been a sneeze away from being Wrynn's room, mattress already traded for straw and desk removed, Anya magics away the floor and grows a carpet of grass as Raven begins brewing a potion that will turn the rooftop to glass. And somewhere between finding Raven and Wrynn, between falling in love and having a family by choice, the cottage begins to feel like home.


End file.
